You may not have heard of Marcus Doi, and you certainly won't find him in the Rangers media guide. He never played professionally. And doesn't scout. But back in 2011-12, Doi, a catcher, was considered the best prospect in Hawaii. If you were scouting Hawaii, you had to see Doi. And Doi just happened to be Kiner-Falefa's teammate at Mid-Pacific Institute in Honolulu.

The scouts came to see Doi, but one, in particular, saw something else.

"I saw this kid, 5-2, maybe 120 pounds," said Steve Flores, the Rangers scout whose area has included Hawaii for the last 17 years. "He had unbelievable hands and great carry on his throws from deep at shortstop from a body that shouldn't be doing that. He didn't hit the ball hard because he was so small, but he always made contact and had great instincts."

It was a classic case of scouting. A veteran scout on a different assignment saw something that stuck out. The rest was just hard work.

Flores told Casey Harvie, the Rangers' West Coast crosschecker. Harvie saw Kiner-Falefa while ostensibly watching Doi during a fall event in Arizona. He considered him interesting, a "pocket follow," somebody to just note and see what the future brings.

What the future brought was a growth spurt that Kiner-Falefa likes to say was spurred by the Samoan side of his family genes. He grew 6 inches. He put on nearly 30 pounds. He was still small, but for an experienced scout and one who has grown to know Hawaiian players well, there was something.

"When I saw he'd grown 6 inches, I wanted to meet his parents," Flores said. "When I met his dad, I knew there was more room to grow."

He also got to know Kiner-Falefa, the player. Kiner-Falefa wanted to play professionally, but there were few teams -- primarily Seattle and Milwaukee -- who showed interest. Any chance of college standing in the way was removed when the University of Hawaii failed to offer him a scholarship. He instead committed to San Jose State, the only Division I school to offer him any kind of baseball incentive.

Flores started to see similarities between the drive of Kiner-Falefa and the first player he ever signed, a then-undersized third baseman from Fresno State: Terry Pendleton. Though an All-American at Fresno, Pendleton was overlooked in the draft until St. Louis used a seventh-round pick on him in 1982.

"I saw a lot of Terry in Isiah," Flores said. "Terry had more raw ability, but there was a drive. Terry was pissed off at the world. Terry was going to prove that he belonged. Isiah was going to prove that he belonged too.

"He told me from Day 1 that he's going to play in the big leagues and that when he gets there, nobody is sending him down," Flores added.

The men tasked with building the Texas Rangers have juggled recent tragedy with a difficult lifestyle. It's the life of an MLB amateur scout.

He also told Flores that signability was not an issue. He ended up signing for $200,000 after being drafted in the fourth round in 2013. The slot value for that spot was $400,000. Doi ended up going much later -- to the Chicago Cubs in the 25th round -- because teams feared he would enroll at the University of Hawaii. He did. He wasn't drafted again.

"I feel like he really got to know my mentality," Kiner-Falefa said of Flores. "With the Rangers, it was almost like a recruiting process. They wanted to know who I was, where I was from where other teams saw me as a baseball player. I felt like with Steve, we kind of come from the same place where family is concerned. He's Mexican-American; I'm Hawaiian. It's different food, but the same thing."

It has so far proven to be a worthy investment. Kiner-Falefa ended May with the highest WAR (Wins Above Replacement) of any position player on the roster. He's played every day. On Tuesday, his two-strike, ninth-inning single gave the Rangers' four-run rally real legs.

He has played three infield positions. The Rangers have also done work with him in the minors as a catcher.

When he was called up in early April, Kiner-Falefa called Flores to remind him of their previous conversation and reiterated he wasn't going to give the Rangers a reason to send him back.